EARLY SCOOTER DAYS IN AMERICA

By Scooter Historian JFRED

In the early days of applying the new internal combustion engine to meeting the needs of transportation it was not always a linear path. While the motorized buggy evolved into the automobile, the motorized bicycle evolved into the motorcycle and someone put a motor on a child’s push scooter giving birth to our motorscooter, there was a lot of blending of technology.

The difference between the automobile and motorcycle blurred with the cycle car. It had side by side seating and steering like an automobile and was powered by a motorcycle engine with chain drive. The difference between the motorscooter and motorbike gets blurry as scooters got bigger wheels and motorbikes got smaller wheels. Once someone put a seat on the motorized push scooter we had the step thru feature. Generally, if it is step thru it is a scooter. There are exceptions of coarse.

In America the guy we probably owe thanks to is Arthur Hugo Cecil Gibson. He was awarded the patent for the Autoped in 1916.

The Autoped company of Long Island, New York described their scooter as the “Wonder of the Motor Vehicle World”. The military even considered the Autoped for service in World War I. This little dandy was produced until 1921.

The motorscooter in America was mostly a novelty until the depression of the 1930s. The combination of the changes in society requiring available transportation as part of daily life and the poor economy made the low cost motorscooter viable. The Salsbury Motor Glide and Cushman Auto-Glide were two of the more successful scooters during the depression.

Next installment we will talk about some of the motorscooters produced between the Autoped and Salsbury.

Jfred is mostly into vintage scooters. He enjoys restoring them but no show queens, His 1947 Cushman is an original unrestored scooter and is just like his very first he had at the age of 12. It's slow, not powerful and doesn't handle well but it makes Jfred smile every time he rides it. He moved to Steelville, Missouri when he retired 11 years ago.